46 LIBERTY OP REASONING 



It is true, that children, fo long as they remain chil- 

 dren, mull be guided by authority : but they mould 

 likewife be inftructed, that they may not always con- 

 tinue children. A child, in the order of nature, will 

 every year be lefs a child - he contains within him 

 whatever is neceffary for attaining to the maturity and 

 perfection of his individual appointment by nature ; 

 and it is unjuft when his fuperior, from felf-interefted 

 views, impedes or retards its developement. — Are the 

 beings we call the people, a fort of moral children, as, 

 not without reafon, we are accuftomed to admit ? 

 Then mtift that have force with them which is valid in 

 regard of all children : they muft not be cut off from 

 any opportunity of attaining to a manly intellect. 



I have feen for fome time paft, not only the dark- 

 lings (among whom one or other of them might dif- 

 pute for the name of the Beautiful Darkling, le Beau 

 TenebreuXj with the antient and illuftrious Amadis de 

 Gaul) but even fuch as would be held for very en- 

 lightened perfonages, riling up againft liberal inftruc- 

 tion and liberal inftructors. — What may they wifh to 

 have ? What have we to fear from the light ? What 

 hopes are we to entertain from darknefs ? — If weak 

 eyes are unable to bear the light ; we fhould endeavour 

 to make them found, and they will gradually learn to 

 bear it. . But murderers, robbers, gamefters, and fuch 

 like, mun the light — and it is exactly thefe, that, 

 for the fake of the general welfare, it ought to purfue 

 into their moft fecret haunts. 



Every known and afcertained truth, every rectifica- 

 tion of an error (be it only in regard to a falfe lection 

 in an antient author, or the number of dufty atoms in 

 1 a new- 



